Thoughts on Google Chrome

For the past two weeks, I have been checking out Google’s new Chrome browser. I like the user interface, speed, and multi-process architecture. However, there are a few annoyances:

1. “The following plug-in has crashed : Shockwave Flash.” I get this error message about once per day. After this happens, Flash video content is unplayable in any Chrome window, so the browser must be restarted. This is frustrating since so many sites use Flash to serve video, and the main reason I wanted to switch to Chrome was because Flash content frequently causes Firefox to crash. This one is a deal breaker for me.

2. No way to specify how to deal with file types. In other browsers, I can choose to view PDF’s with Foxit Reader instead of the bloated and slow Adobe Reader. I can’t do this in Chrome.

3. No browser plugins. I miss my Firefox extensions, especially the delicious bookmark add-on.

4. No master password. Like other browsers, Google Chrome will store your passwords so you don’t have to enter them when you visit Facebook or your online banking site. Unlike other browsers, there is no master password, so anyone using your computer has access to all your accounts, too.

I suspect that one or all of these things are coming in the next few releases. In the meantime, I may be checking out the Internet Explorer 8 Beta. Google Chrome claims to be a beta version, too, but then again, what “beta” means to Google is anyone’s guess.